Polish Prez Mocks Gay American Wedding

Speaking to a national television audience, the president of Poland played a video of two American men getting married in Canada as he mocked the EU's rules on same-same unions.

A gay man from the United States on Tuesday voiced outrage against Poland's President Lech Kaczynski for publicly using a video of his marriage to bash the EU's proposed charter of rights.

"Of course I am outraged that the president and his party would use images of Tom and I, of a very sacred moment for us as a couple," Brendan Fey told Poland's commercial Radio Zet broadcaster. Kaczynski used a prime-time televised address Monday to argue the EU's proposed Charter of Fundamental Rights, linked to the bloc's crucial reforming Lisbon Treaty, could allow homosexual marriage in Poland, a devoutly Catholic country.

A video of the couple's marriage in Toronto, Canada was broadcast nationwide to illustrate Kaczynski's presidential address. Fey and his spouse were not identified by name in the broadcast. "It is very sad for me when leaders of a nation such as the president of Poland urge people not to support the Lisbon Treaty because of the possibility of recognising equally same sex couples and our families," Fey told Radio Zet.

"Tom and I, we are both Catholic, in fact we met at church at Sunday mass," he added. Fey vowed to complain to Polish authorities that images of his wedding were "used in a derogatory manner."Poland's liberal Prime Minister Donald Tusk also slammed the president's address Tuesday.

"To scare Poles by saying that homosexuals and Germans pose a threat to the EU is stupid, indecent, contrary to our fundamental interests and very damaging to Poland's image abroad," Tusk said. Kaczynski had also said the charter could allow Germans to sue Poles for properties lost after World War II, when the Polish-German border was redrawn.

What Kaczynksi probably didn't realize is Brendan Fay is an internationally reknowned gay activist. Here are some photos I took of Fay at a protest at the Russian consulate last summer.